Semi-retired psychologist shares his experience.

Certainly, the inferior position of women has existed for a long, long time, and there is some question as to whether women are even holding their own. In a recent article concerning changes in the status of women since the Second World War, Lipovenko (1983) reported as follows: “While the number of Canadian women working outside the home has grown rapidly since the post war years, there is ‘depressingly little change in the kind of work they do,’ says a federal report to be released today [21 February 1983]….

More than 70 per cent of women who work for pay are in clerical, service, sales, processing and fabricating jobs – and women are becoming more dominant in those traditionally female occupations, says the report for the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women….

As of 1980, one‑third of all working women do clerical work and half of them are concentrated in trade and service – the lowest paid industrial sectors, the report noted.

Since 1975, women have lost ground in two well‑paid occupations – teaching and jobs involving machines. There has been a significant drop in the number of full‑time teaching jobs going to women: new teaching jobs are going to men working full‑time and to women employed part-time….

Women’s average annual earnings in 1979 (the most recent year for which data were available) were $7,673 compared to $14,981 for men, the report said.”[1] It is within this context that I offer to women my advice on getting ahead in the world.

[1] As a 2008 update, the gender gap in salaries was $ 0.71 for women, for every $ 1.00 earned by men. The gender gap remains regardless of education. “Female high school graduates earn 27 percent less than male graduates. Female university graduates earn 16 percent less than male graduates.” (The Toronto Star, September 17, 2008).

In honour of my eighty-third birthday, I think that I will begin to serialize one of the better papers that I have ever written: Women’s Lib, Witchcraft, and Sex or How to Fuck Your Way to the Top. It began with a trip to Toronto on the Wednesday night before the Ontario Psychological Association’s annual convention, probably in 1983. Len Goldsmith, who was president of the Clinical Division of the association asked me if I would like to present a talk at the Clinical Division banquest that Friday evening. I drove back to my office in Brampton and wrote the first draft that night. My secretary typed it up for me and I delivered it at the banquet. You could have heard a pin drop. They didn’t know what to make of it. Perhaps you won’t either.

For popular consumption, the title has been changed to:

Women’s Lib, Witchcraft, and Sex

or

Let Your Goddess Be Your Guide

In an article entitled “Who said women are all bad? Almost everybody,” Landsberg (1983) reported the opinions of women expressed by a number of Titans of Western Thought. Socrates is quoted as saying that “Woman is the source of all evil. Her love is to be dreaded more than the hatred of a man.” Plato believed that “Those of the men … who led a life of cowardice and injustice were suitably reborn as women.” Aristotle felt that “We should regard the female as afflicted with natural defectiveness.” Pythagoras believed that “There is a good principle which created order, light and man, and an evil principle which created chaos, darkness and women.” Martin Luther observed that “God created Adam Lord of All Living Creatures, but Eve spoiled it all.” Napoleon Bonaparte avowed that “Nature intended women to be our slaves … they are our property … just as a tree that bears fruit belongs to a gardener. What a mad idea to demand equality for women! Women are nothing but machines for producing children.” Tolstoy said that we should “Regard the society of women as a necessary unpleasantness of social life, and avoid it as much as possible.” And Freud said that “The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is what does a woman want?” But the most telling quotation of all is from Kurt Vonnegut who said “Educating a beautiful woman is like pouring honey into a fine Swiss watch: Everything stops.”

I have been thinking about how to teach parents how to teach their children with autism, and I have come to the conclusion that most will not be becoming skilled instructors. Given that context, I think that it is best that they not attempt to provide ABA-based instruction until they learn how to do it properly. So, what to do? I think that they should begin by learning how to do it properly and, until they have acquired that skill to the satisfaction of someone who is skilled in ABA-based instruction, they should confine their parenting activities to caring for their children’s needs, giving prompted direction, and playing with their children. In playing with their children, they will teach their children that social interaction can be enjoyable, which is a good basis for later learnings.